Supporting frame for door frames



Oct. 1, 1968 E. l. E. SCHUBEIS SUPPORTING FRAME FOR DOOR FRAMES 1 v e e h 6 S v e e h S 2 1 5/1 F H 6 6 B N M2 m m 0 F d e 1 1 F J g JNVENTOR.

MM} 4V v Oct. 1, 1968 E. l. E. SCHUBEIS SUPPORTING FRAME FOR DOOR FRAMES 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Oct. 14, 1966 FIGA ,5

FIG. 5

United States Patent O i 3,403,486 SUPPORTING FRAME FOR DOOR FRAMES Ewald Ingemar Emanuel Schubeis, Tegnergatan 9, Stockholm, Sweden Filed Oct. 14, 1966, Ser. No. 586,772 6 Claims. (Cl. 52127) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A device for supporting a door frame in a wall during the setting of the material which forms the wall. The device includes a rigid rectangular metal frame of a configuration which enables it to fit within the door frame opening. Beams are provided along two adjoining sides of the rigid frame. The beams are adapted to be displaced from the adjacent frame side member into sup porting abutment with the sides of the door frame. The remaining sides of the rigid frame also abut and support the portions of the door frame which are adjacent thereto, thus bracing the door frame around the entire periphery thereof. The beams are adjustably lockable with respect to the complementary rigid frame sides.

When door frames of fire doors and the like are mount ed in walls of bricks or concrete the door frame itself which usually is made of section irons is used as mould. To brace the door frame during the brick laying or concrete casting the door is placed in the door frame, the gaps which always are present between the door and the frame, however, having to be filled with inserts, for instance pieces of hardboard or the like. Said inserts, however, are easily displaced and can fall out, especially if said door frame is mounted in vibrated concrete, resulting in that the rather weak door frame can be deformed by the mounting stresses. Therefore, said door frame must be subjected to a more or less difiicult adjustment after the brick laying or the concrete casting which results in higher building costs.

The main object of the present invention is to provide a supporting frame for a door frame, by which the abovementioned disadvantage is removed.

Another object of the invention is to provide a supporting frame for a door frame which does not unduly prevent free passage through said door frame during the mounting of same in a wall and during the time necessary for the setting of said wall.

The invention is also concerned with a supporting frame of the kind stated which easily can be mounted in and removed from the door frame and after removal from one door frame immediately can be used to support another door frame.

To fulfill the above-stated objects the supporting frame according to the invention comprises a rigid frame-work for insertion in the opening for the door in the door frame, said frame-work as to both its height and its width being smaller than said opening in the door frame and along each of two adjoining sides thereof being provided with a beam which is parallelly displaceable with respect to the cooperating frame-work side into engagement with said door frame, said beams furthermore being lockable in said engaging position.

Some embodiments of the invention will as examples be described in detail below with reference to the attached drawings in which FIG. 1 is a front view of one embodiment, partly in section, FIG. 2 is a longitudinal section along the line IIII in FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a cross section along the line IIIIII of FIG. 1 with the supporting frame arranged in the door frame immediately after the mounting of same in a wall, FIG. 4 is a schematical 3,403,486 Patented Oct. 1, 1968 front view of a second embodiment, FIG. 5 is a view in section of the part of the supporting frame of FIG. 4 within the circle V, FIG. 6 is a cross-section along the line VIVI of FIG. 5 and FIG. 7 is a view corresponding to FIG. 5 of a modification.

FIGS. 1 to 3 show a rigid, rectangular frame-work 1 which preferably is made of square tubes rigidly joined to each other at the corners and in each corner strengthened by braces 2 which accurately position the tubes at right angles. According to the invention both the height and the width of said frame-work 1 is smaller than the height and the width, respectively, of the opening for the door in said door frame 3. Along each of two adjoining sides said frame-work 1 is provided with a beam 4 and 5, respectively, which preferably is of U-shape cross-section, the legs of said U-beam straddling the cooperating side of said frame-work 1 with some gap between the front and back sides of said tube and said legs.

The height of said legs is preferably substantially greater than the width of said square tubes of the frame-work and a number of cross-bands 6 are attached between the edges of said legs. A through-hole 7 is arranged in each cross-band 6 and a bolt 8 the end of which is fastened to said frame-work 1 passes through said hole. A thumb nut 9 is screwed onto said bolt 8 and abuts against said cross-band. Said bolts 8 prevent longitudinal displacement between said beams 4, 5 and said frame-work 1 but allow a displacement of said beams parallel to the cooperating sides of said frame-work 1 within limits determined by said thumb nuts 9.

The supporting frame is used in the following manner:

The rigid frame-work 1 with the beams 4, 5 is first inserted in the door frame 3 in the place of the door. Thereafter said thumb nuts 9 are tightened uniformly so that said beams 4, 5 are forced outwards and upwards, respectively, until the supporting frame is firmly installed in the door frame and braces same. Then the laying or casting of the wall can immediately be commenced. After the mounting of the door frame 3 in the wall, the thumb nuts 9 are loosened so much that the supporting frame can be removed from the door frame and placed in a new door frame to be mounted.

To increase the rigidity of the supporting frame even more and protect it from all sorts of deformation the supporting frame according to the invention can be provided with longitudinal angle irons 10, 11 welded directly to said frame-work 1 and to the beams 4, 5 at the sides thereof facing the door opening. The angle irons 10', 11 are so positioned that they will abut against the parts 12 of the inside of the door frame, which are not directly in contact with the supporting frame when same is arranged in said door frame. To facilitate the handling of the supporting frame which is of comparatively low weight it can be provided with handles 13 provided at the inside of the rigid frame-Work.

The embodiment shown in FIGS. 4 to 6 corresponds fundamentally with the embodiment described above and only differs therefrom with respect to the devices for actuating the displacement of said beams parallelly to the two adjoining sides of said rigid frame-work 1.

In this second embodiment the displacement of said beams 4, 5 into abutment with the inner sides of the opening in the said door frame 3 is achieved by means of a number, at least two, mutually alike excenter mechanisms, one of which is shown in FIGS. 5 and 6.

A shaft 15 passes through the front and rear walls 16 and 17, respectively, of the side of the frame-work 1, which preferably has the form of a square tube, and is rotatably journalled in said walls. Said shaft 15 is positioned comparatively close to the outward facing wall of the square tube and parallel with same. An eccentric 19 is rigidly fastened to said shaft 15. At one end said shaft extends outside of the frame-work side 11 and passes through a slot 20 in the adjoining leg of the U-beam 4 or 5 cooperating with said frame-work side.

A lever 21 is fastened at the protruding end of said shaft in such a way that swinging movement of the lever causes rotation of the shaft 15 and th eccentric 19 fastened thereto and said eccentric 19 is swung out through a slot 22 arranged in the outward facing wall 18 of said frame-work side and forces the beam 4 or 5 outwards into abutment with the door frame.

As shown in FIG. 4 at least two excenter mechanisms of the kind described above are arranged for each beam 4 or 5. All the levers 21 of the excenter mechanisms cooperating with one of the beams 4 or 5 are joined to each other by means of a coupling rod 23 and 24, respectively, said rod being connected to each lever 21, preferably by the aid of a slot-and-pin coupling. One end of an operating lever 25 is hinged to the frame-work side cooperating with said beam 4 or 5 and the corresponding coupling rod 23 is swingably journalled to said operating lever 25 in a point 26 between th ends thereof. One end of a connecting rod 27 is also swingably connected to said point 26, the other end of said connecting rod 27 being swingably attached to one arm of a bell crank 28 journalled at a fixed point of said frame-work 1. The other arm of said bell crank 28 is connected to the other coupling rod 24 over another connecting rod 29.

Thus, by swinging said operating lever 25 all the eccentrics 19 are simultaneously rotated and the linkage 21, 23-29 is preferably so constructed that all eccentrics 19 are rotated through the same angle. Therefore, the two beams 4 and 5 can be displaced simultaneously and at the same degree simply by swinging the operating lever 25 and can be retained in abutment with said door frame 3 by locking the operating lever in the desired swinging position.

It is of course also possible to construct the eccentrics 19 and/or the linkage 21, 23-29 in such a way that one beam, e.g. 5, is displaced at a greater degree than the other beam, eg 4, when said operating lever 25 is swung through a certain angle.

The embodiment shown in FIG. 7 is a modification of that just described. In this embodiment at least the framework sides cooperating with said beams have I-profile and said beams 4, 5 are rectangular, preferably made of square tubes, and are guided between the legs 30, 31 of said I-profile outside of th web 32 thereof. The shaft 15' of an eccentric 19 is journalled in said legs 30, 31 on the inside of said web 32 and displaces said beam 4 or 5 outwards.

The swinging movement of the eccentric 19' is also in this modification brought about by a lever 21' fastened to said shaft 15' and all eccentrics 19 can be: actuated in a manner described with reference to FIG. 4.

Said beams 4 and 5 and the frame-work sides not cooperating with beams in the last two embodiments can of course also be provided with angle irons 10, 11.

The supporting frame according to the invention thus provides an easily adjustable device for preventing deformation of the door frame when same is mounted in a wall, no matter whether by bricklaying or by concrete casting, and said supporting frame can just as easily be removed again. Furthermore, the supporting frame does not block the passage through the door opening during the erecting and setting of the wall.

I claim:

1. A device for supporting a pre-fabricated door frame, said door frame including a pair of jamb members connected by at least one cross member such that a door opening is formed, said device comprising:

a rigid quadrilateral frame-work configured in such a manner that said frame-work will readily fit within the opening formed by said door frame,

each of two adjoining sides of said frame-work having a beam member positioned adjacent thereto, said beam members adapted to be displaced from, but parallel to, said adjoining frame-work sides into supporting engagement with on of said jamb members and said cross member of said door frame,

said displacement of said beam members simultaneously causing the remaining frame-work sides to abut and support the remainder of said door frame in order to prevent distortion and deformation of said door frame under pressur exerted by a wall around said door frame,

each of said beam members adapted to be locked into engagement with said door frame.

2. The supporting device of claim 1 in which said beams are U-shaped, the legs of said beams being adapted to straddle the adjoining frame-work sides, said beams being displaced from said frame-work sides in a parallel telescoping manner by virtue of the guidance afforded by said legs.

3. The supporting device of claim 2 in which the height of said legs is substantially greater than the width thereof, said beams being connected to said adjoining framework sides by at least two cross-bands each of which has a bolt which is fastened to said adjoining frame-work sides passing through co-aXially aligned holes in said side and said beam member, each of said bolts having a thumb nut secured thereon.

4. The supporting device of claim 1 in which each of said beam members is displaced into supporting engagement with the door frame by at least one eccentric, said eccentric being journalled in said adjoining frame-work side, said eccentrics adapted to be mutually operable.

5. The supporting device of claim 4 in which each of said eccentrics is operatively connected to a common linkage member, said linkage member being adapted to simultaneously operate said eccentrics in order to lock said beam members in supporting engagement with said door frame.

6. The supporting device of claim 1 in which said rigid quadrilateral frame-work is provided with a plurality of longitudinal angle irons, said angle irons being adapted to abut against the portions of said door frame which are not directly in contact with said beam members.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 880,252 2/1908 Tennent 33-194 1,003,517 9/1911 Scelza 33-194 1,017,811 2/1912 Scelza 33-194 2,502,166 3/1950 McKay 33-194 2,704,876 3/1955 Puckett et al. 249-19 2,771,688 11/1956 Baker 33-194 2,914,813 12/1959 Christian et a1. 52 127 2,949,948 8/1960 Zern 33-194 X 3,027,686 4/1962 Oates 52-127 3,102,345 9/1963 Holland 33-194 3,141,533 7/1964 Bezow et a1 52-122 3,168,305 2/1965 Lee 33-194 3,340,655 9/1967 Darrah 52-127 FOREIGN PATENTS 816,455 10/ 1951 Germany.

FRANK L. ABBOTT, Primary Examiner.

CHARLES G. MUELLER, Assistant Examiner. 

